Liam and Killian
by Degby
Summary: Liam and Killian are young brothers, living a quiet, ordinary life, shuttling between their divorced parents in a small town in Ireland. After Killian is injured in a traumatic accident involving the boys' father, their mother takes them overseas to her cousin's place in California to recuperate. AU!Realworld Scenario with kid!Liam and kid!Killian, no magic
1. Chapter 1

Killian was not supposed to be in the passenger side seat. He was supposed to be in the back. Kids under a certain age weren't supposed to ride in the front at all.

But the back of his dad's car was full of stuff he needed to sell at the second hand shop they were going to, so Killian got to "sit up front like a big boy."

Killian liked being the big boy for a change. Usually his older brother Liam got to sit in shotgun next to their dad, but today Liam was competing at the Junior Sailing Regatta in Dublin out of town and their mum had taken him there, leaving Killian with his dad for the weekend.

So far Killian had already done lots of big boy things with his dad, like going to the pub, trying to play darts and trying beer for the first time. His dad and all his mates thought it was hilarious when Killian spit out his first taste of beer. More for me then, his dad laughed and drank the rest of Killian's cup as well as his own.

Sometimes Killian was glad he wasn't a grown up. Grown up life seemed to be really boring. Whenever he hung out with his dad all they seemed to do was go to pubs and watch football matches and then watch his dad bet on them and lose more money and play cards.

At least he had been able to convince his dad to take him to Toys R Us if he was quiet and stayed put when they were at the pub. Personally, Killian thought his dad owed him the entire shop for how long he made him spend in the pub being bored, playing with his DS. He couldn't believe it when they finally got out of there. At least his dad was in a good mood, letting Killian sit up front like Liam when he asked and singing to the radio as they rocketed down the street. Maybe he had won some money.

Killian's dad was so distracted singing to the music in the car that he rocketed right through a red light.

The windows were down and Killian had his hand out, riding it in the air, making it surf on the current in time with the music. The wind whistling by felt so good.

The driver coming from the other direction thought they would stop at the light like anyone else. When they didn't the car plowed straight into Killian's father's car, right into the passenger's side.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes Liam hated his dad and his brother. The day Killian and his dad got in the accident, Liam's sailing team won gold in his age division at the regatta. It was the happiest moment of his life and his mom wasn't even there to see it. Minutes before the awards announcement was made, she'd gone outside to take a phone call. It was the police, calling about the accident, telling her his little brother Killian was unconscious in the ICU.

It was the beginning of a long time of that sort of thing happening. Liam getting pushed aside, because Killian was hurt and needed all the love and attention.

Liam was patient though. Just two years ago, he himself had been sick in the hospital when he had to have an operation to have his appendix out. For a while his mother and father had to take care of him and keep him at home. Then after a few weeks he was all better and went back to school and everything returned to the way it was before.

He knew once Killian was better everything would settle down and he would stop getting all the attention. It was just a matter of time.

The doctors did everything they could to try to save Killian's hand, but after a few days, they had to admit it was too damaged and it wasn't getting enough blood to survive. Killian's hand was dying and they had to amputate it.

Liam couldn't believe that Killian would never really get better, that he'd always have just one hand for the rest of his life. It didn't seem possible. It felt like a trick. Liam didn't want to see his brother in the hospital. He was scared Killian wouldn't look like his brother anymore, that he would look scary, but his mum made him.

In the end he was glad he did. Killian still looked like Killian. He wasn't scary. He smiled a little at Liam and said "hi." He sounded very sleepy and far away though. Their mum gave Killian a juice box and helped him drink it. Killian raised his hands to grab the juice box and seemed shocked when he realized he only had one hand and the other one was just an arm with a bandage on the end. He still wasn't used to it either and started to cry.

Liam felt embarrassed for his brother. He didn't want to look at him anymore and hid behind the hospital curtain. Then he cried a little himself.

After what happened their dad wasn't allowed to see them anymore. The police put their dad in jail for a few months and he lost the partial custody of the children that he'd had. Maybe Liam was a traitor, but his dad said it was all a misunderstanding, a mistake. He believed his dad. He could see his dad felt terrible about what happened to Killian. Liam wished he could visit his dad. He was curious to see the prison where they were keeping him, if it was anything like prison on the telly, like a dungeon. He begged his mum to visit him, but she just yelled at him and made him feel bad. But Liam knew even Killian asked about their dad, and wanted to know if he'd hurt his hand too. But no, their dad was alright, just in prison and Liam missed him.

It couldn't possibly be his dad's fault, he was certain of it. His dad was a hero, a firefighter in their hometown. He played drums in a band too. Liam knew his dad loved him and loved Killian as well. It had just been a mistake, he was sure of it. But then at the trial the police said his dad's alcohol level had been too high for him to be driving. That Killian wasn't supposed to be in the front seat at all. Their dad had been careless and drunk and Killian had paid the price. It wasn't fair.

Killian came home. Even though he didn't have a hand on his left side anymore, it still hurt him all the time. He had to take lots of medicines to take the pain away and that made him very sleepy. He stayed on the couch and watched telly and slept all the time. He wouldn't play football or video games or anything no matter how much Liam bugged him and he always looked sad.

"I don't understand how he can be too tired for video games," complained Liam to his mum. "He doesn't even have to get up for that. It's just like watching TV."

"It's different," his mum explained, "there's the controller."

And then, to his horror, Liam realized about the controller, the one you held in both hands. No wonder Killian didn't want to play. The sheer enormity of what had happened to his brother rose up and engulfed him all of a sudden. Killian loved to play video games and their dad had taken that away from him. Killian had done nothing wrong, other than to listen to an adult, when that adult told him where to sit, an adult he should've been able to trust. Liam was starting to hate his dad for what he did and it felt horrible.

He vowed, at least, to stop bugging Killian to play video games. He felt so bad about it, in fact that he stopped playing video games himself altogether whenever Killian was around, so his brother wouldn't feel sad. Liam realized he would just have to get used to the fact that Killian couldn't play with him anymore.

But without his dad or Killian to play with him, Liam was incredibly lonely. He stayed in the back garden after school. His World Cup football had deflated and his mum kept forgetting to blow it up again. Instead he was making do with a tennis ball, kicking it against the wall of the back of the house as hard as he could, hoping someone noticed the sound.

Bang, bang, bang. He hoped his mum noticed. He wanted her to notice something other than Killian.

But she didn't.

Liam heard a creaking metal sound from the window above him on the upper story. Killian's room. Hesitantly, in awkward bumps somebody was rolling open the window.

"Oi!" said a voice. Killian's pale face was pressed up against the screen.

"Come down Killy!" called Liam.

Killian gave a faint smile. A minute or so later, Killian was opening the door to the patio in the back. He grunted with difficulty trying to move the screen and close it with one hand. Liam went over and did it for him.

Killian was still in his pajamas, wearing his Bob the Builder slippers. His hair looked funny because it had been half shaved so they could stitch up his scalp after the accident. His sleeve was pushed up to his elbow. The end of his arm was wrapped up in bandages still and his face was wan, with dark circles under his eyes.

He noticed the tennis ball. "Can we play football with it?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure!" said Liam.

He gently kicked it over to Killian, making sure it went right to his feet, in the sweet spot by the inside of his slipper where he could easily kick it back from. Killian was a little weak and shaky at first, but soon he became absorbed in the game. He tired more easily than before and didn't try to rush Liam or fight him or say much, but at least he played with him and Liam wasn't so lonely or bored anymore.

After that it got easier to get Killian to play. Soon he became sort of normal again. They could even play videogames together, once Killian got his bandages off and he learned to bash the left side of the controller a bit with the end of his stump.

But Killian still only had one hand and their dad was still a bad person who'd let his own son get hurt from his carelessness. And everybody knew what had happened. It wasn't a big town. People were always coming up to Liam, at church or at the shops, asking how Killian was doing, clucking their tongues and saying how sad it all was and calling Killian "a poor little thing." It made Liam mad sometimes. He wished he could go away somewhere and take Killian and his mum with him, somewhere where no one would look pityingly on them and say "oh that poor family," "what happened to that sweet little boy" or demand to see how his stump was healing up or call Killian "a brave little boy."

Liam knew Killian wasn't brave. He cried out in his dreams every night and he sobbed when he had to go to the hospital to have his stump looked at and he hid under the bed because he was scared to go back to school.

Liam didn't want to be under scrutiny. He wanted to be anonymous, someplace where nobody knew their story, where they were just another regular family.

He didn't realize it, but his mum wanted the same thing too. She was tired of the stares and people shaking their heads or even coming right up to her asking her point blank how she could've trusted Killian to her ex-husband when he had a known drinking problem and how it was her fault that Killian got hurt. As if she didn't think about that enough on her own and beat her own self up with guilt every day.

If only they could get away. Someplace where they wouldn't always be reminded of what happened. Not forever, just for a short time. All three of them just needed a break.


	3. Chapter 3

Iris, Killian and Liam's mum, had not heard from her cousin Mila in America for a long time. She hadn't tried especially hard to keep in touch, truth be told. It wasn't that she didn't like Mila. They had grown up together as little girls and had been great friends, but as they got older, her mother and father started to disapprove of the slightly older girl. Mila like to go out late and party. She skipped school and smoked and it was known in town that she went out with several boys and had gone to Dublin without her parents' permission to see concerts several times.

Mila told Iris that there was no way she was going to stay in their little village forever. She was determined to get out of town and explore the world. Especially, she was determined to go to America and have adventures. As soon as she could, she picked up sticks and made for London, where she worked part time, took classes in acting and dance and did "Lord knows what else to make money" according to Iris's disapproving father. Iris kept in touch with her cousin, discreetly of course, even managing to hook up with her on one particularly memorable school trip to the British capital. Eventually Mila did get her chance to travel, signing on to work as an entertainer on a cruise ship.

Around that time Iris met Sean, and one thing led to another and Liam came along and before Iris knew it she was married and working at her parents shop and living in a nice enough house in town. She'd never really wanted to take the path Mila had, but sometimes, she felt wistful for the adventures she'd never had. The farthest she'd ever travelled was on her honeymoon with Sean to Tenerife.

When next she heard from Mila, her cousin was in America, working at a casino in Las Vegas. "Hmmph," said Iris's father. "Didn't say exactly what work she was doing, did she?" Iris had to admit that no, she'd not said.

A few years after that they heard from her again and the news this time was most unexpected.

The peripatetic Mila had gotten married and was over the moon in love.

This was big news indeed. Iris knew Mila had had a wide variety of men in her life since they'd been in secondary school, she'd never heard, her talk like this about any one man, wanting to settle down and start a life together, wanting to be with just one person forever.

Just reading her romantic talk, made Iris's jaw nearly drop to the floor. Iris's mother, however was not surprised.

"See," she clucked smugly, "even Mila isn't immune to the pull of a nice safe home. It's abnormal for a woman to be so nomadic. Why are you so surprised? Of course, she'd want to settle down and lead a normal life eventually. All women do."

Of course, then her mother's jaw dropped completely when she read the rest of the e-mail as Mila described her chosen paramour.

"His name is Rum Gold," wrote Mila. "It's a stage name, of course, his real name is Rumford Boyle, but he prefers Gold. He used to be quite a well-known stage magician around these parts. You know that famous mother and daughter team Cora and Regina Mills who used live crocodiles and komodo dragons in their magic act?

Well, he used to be a part of it, until there was this rather nasty incident with one of the crocodiles. Unfortunately, it tried to eat him and sort of half-succeeded. Now he makes his living designing effects and illusions for other acts. I met him at the casino when he was a bit down and out and having a tough time after the whole crocodile incident and we got together and since then things have been going great! He just got a job working on some illusions for a new ride at the Disneyland so we've just moved out there, (to Anaheim outside Disneyland, not Disneyland itself, you know) with his son Baelfire. (Can you believe I have a 15 year old stepson? How cool is that!) I got a new job too, working at Six Flags Amusement park in a pirate themed acrobatics show. Come out and visit us sometime and we can get you and the boys into the parks for free!

Lots of love, kiss kiss,

Mila

"Holy shit you have got to be kidding me," laughed Iris's father. "Is that right Imelda? Mila ready to settle down and have a normal life? With a stage magician named after an alcoholic drink who once served as a crocodile snack? If it wasn't Mila I would swear it was a prank!"

But it was Mila and Iris knew whatever it was it wasn't a prank. Mila had her own happy ending and somehow it seemed fitting. Maybe it was a bit odd to Iris's folks, but if it was what made Mila happy then who were they to sniff at it. Was what she'd got, living the same sort of life her parents had in their little village, so very happy after all? So what if her cousin and her love were a little unconventional. She sounded delighted.

There was a small photo attached to the e-mail. There was Mila smiling radiantly, looking in her element in full pirate regalia standing beside a small, dapper looking man in a slightly old fashioned suit. From the small photo you couldn't tell he'd been crocodile snacks at one time. He looked like a perfectly ordinary, if a little weathered and slightly older than Mila, man. His hand was resting on the shoulder of a boy, who bore a striking resemblance to him. He looked about 14, with a mop of brown curly hair and a shy expression wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Mila's hand rested on the head a little girl with blonde pigtails and a cautious smile who looked about Killian's age. There was nothing in the letter to suggest who the little girl was. They seemed like a nice, if unconventional family. They looked like they loved each other.

As her parents sat drinking their tea and having a laugh at Mila's expense, Iris thought thought wistfully that she wished she could go visit them.

"So," her mother cut into her thoughts, "has there been any progress with Killian?"

"Progress with what?" asked Iris, not looking forward to Imelda's next nosy question.

Her mother rolled her eyes. "With his _hand,_ Iris. I thought they'd fit him for a prosthetic already. He needs a hook, a plastic hand, something at least. You can't just have him walking around with an empty sleeve for the rest of his life, it looks terrible."

"No it doesn't! Killian looks beautiful," Iris said through gritted teeth, tears in her eyes. "What a cruel thing to say! How dare you!"

"I just calls 'em like I see 'em," her mother said unrepentantly. "People will be more accepting if he has a prosthetic. I thought he was going to the Shriner's clinic to get one."

"He did get one."

"Than why doesn't he wear it?"

"His stump is still really sensitive and t hurts him. He doesn't like it."

"He'll get used to it. Just make him wear it and he'll get accustomed to the feel."

"No, no I won't. I won't make him wear anything, not if it hurts him. Hasn't he been through enough? He doesn't need to wear something fake to make _you _feel better if it's not comfortable for him. He's beautiful, any way he chooses to be."

"Maybe you see it that way," said her mother, "but other people might not think so."

"What? Other people like you?" said Iris angrily. "I'm done listening to you and your stupid advice! I shouldn't have listened from the very beginning when you fixed me up with Sean and told me to get married and work in your stupid shop! And now look at my life! I hate you! C'mon Liam, Killian! We're leaving!" yelled Iris and stormed out of her parents house trailing Killian and Liam in her wake.

Later on she apologized to her mother. "I don't really hate you," she said over the phone. "I'm just- just so frustrated here," she sobbed. "I feel- I feel _trapped."_

"Then maybe," said her mother, "you need to go someplace where you don't, at least for a little while. The shop will be here when you come back. I have a little money set aside. I could help you. Please, I love you Iris and I think Killian is lovely, I didn't mean it like that. This doesn't change anything of how I feel for my grandson. I was only trying to think about what might be best for him. Please. Would you forgive me?"

"Yes," said Iris.

After talking to her mother, Iris sat at the computer. She thought about the letter from Mila. She thought about how much money she had left in her bank account and on her credit cards and her mother's generous offer. Then she thought about LA.

An hour later she sat on the edge of the bathtub watching Liam and Killian brush their teeth and get ready for bed. Liam was already almost done brushing. Killian was still carefully trying to squeeze the toothpaste onto the bristly part of the toothbrush. Since he couldn't hold it in place with his other hand it wasn't easy. There were streaks of toothpaste all over the counter from the times he'd missed, but he was determined to get it on the bristles just like he'd tried at occupational therapy. He bit his lip, determinedly.

Iris kept her hands firmly gripped on the edge of the tub. It was killing her not to get up and help him, but she knew he had to learn to do things like this on his own. She promised herself she would only interfere if he got really frustrated and threw the toothpaste across the room again. Last time it had landed in the toilet bowl and she'd had to fish it out using gloves and throw out an almost completely new tube. She really hoped that didn't happen again.

This time Killian got the toothpaste on the bristles just as he was about to lose patience. "Yes!" he cheered and Iris smiled.

"Well done," said Liam and Killian grinned at his brother as he put the toothbrush in his mouth and began to brush away.

He was getting some of his old spunk and adventurousness back, Iris could tell.

At first he had been so cautious with everything, cradling the stump of his wrist with his good hand at all times, afraid anything he did would hurt it. He was still completely spooked by the playground, preferring to stay on the field part of the park and kick a ball around, rather than attempt the climbing frame or swings or the ladder that went up to the slide. Part of her hoped he'd give it a try and part of her worried if he did he'd get hurt again, but she knew she had to let him get out there and try things and learn to adapt. It was just hard feeling like all the eyes of everyone in town were on them, judging her negatively no matter what she did. If only there was some place she could help Killian get back to himself, far away from eyes that would judge her parenting skills.

"Hey," said Iris, trying to be casual, "how would you boys like to go on a trip?"

"A trip?" asked Liam.

"A trip!" enthused Killian.

"Where to?" asked Liam.

"What would you say to Disneyland?"

"In Paris?" asked Liam.

"In California," said Iris with a grin.

The two brothers looked at their mother with big eyes. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Please, please please!"

"Alright," said Iris. "Now do either of you remember your cousin Mila?"


End file.
